"Sherry's was near
the bottom of Lothian Road on the east side of the road. It
was an up-market restaurant, on par with the old Brown Derby
that was above the Three Tons pub in Hanover
Street."

Barkley Night Club

"Before
being a restaurant it was the Barkley night club, used by many American
service men from the Kirknewton air base."

Frank Ferri, Newhaven, Edinburgh:
July 31 + August 2, 2008

Recollections

2.

Lyndsay
Montgomery

Old Town, Edinburgh

Lyndsay
Montgomery wrote:

Smith's Burger Bar

"I've noticed that no-one has
mentioned Smith's.
It was a restaurant burger bar on Lothian Road.
I think it was owned by the famous Mr W. and
associates.

It was very teenager-orientated.Bruce Finlay of Bruce's
music shops,who was
Manager of local bands, had his first venture into selling music
there.He
had already been 'DJ'ing
at a disco in Rose Street Lane that later
called Flannigan's. I don't know if
there is anything going on there now.

I think there is a lap-dancing bar now
in Lothian Road, where Smith's used to be. (It
might belong to the same people nowadays!)
I think
the famous milk bar was just up from there, and was very old
fashioned compared to Smiths."

Smith's Music

Smiths was a great place then.
All the music that we danced to at the time
was being played, and of course you could
buy stuff that was not easily found elsewhere, and catch up with
pals that you would probably only see in the clubs at night, and
given the decibels that were pumped out listening to live music,
it was not conducive to conversations!

Ring

I worked for McEwans the furniture shop
in St Patricks Square as a decorator (painting
the little rooms that provided the scenes for their furniture, and
arranged stuff) and on my day off I went
to Smiths.

On one unhappy occasion, I met up with
some guys who did a bit of ducking and diving.
One one of them admired my ring, a family heirloom with a
rather nice setting.

He asked to see it.
there was a lovely ruby in it, and I was very naive,and took it off to show him. Making
the excuse he took it to the door to have
a better look, and vanished. I
never saw either him or the ring again, and got hell from my Dad
about wearing it.